Penns Grove takes a step forward even though it comes at the expense of a loss; Pennsville splits with Cumberland
BOYS GAMES
Eastern 56, Penns Grove 43
Cumberland 70, Pennsville 49
GIRLS GAME
Pennsville 61, Cumberland 25
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNS GROVE – His young team had just taken another loss to one of the bluebloods it schedules early in the season to teach and toughen for the road ahead. The loss in itself would be enough to dampen a day that still had a lot of left in it, but Penns Grove coach Damian Ware didn’t feel all that bad and told his team that after the loss’ initial sting wears off it shouldn’t either.
The Red Devils absorbed a 56-43 loss to an Eastern team now on an eight-game winning streak Saturday. It came less than a week since they took their lumps in a 30-point loss to St. Augustine on the Wildwood boardwalk, but this one felt different.
In the St. Augustine game, the Red Devils fell behind and the deficit just kept growing. Saturday against the Vikings they fell behind after taking a lead out of the gate, but instead of watching the gap grow larger, they kept it in a manageable range.
It did get to be a 20-point game midway through the third quarter, but the Red Devils brought it back to 10 early in the fourth.
“We’re still getting there,” Ware said. “The thing is, against St. Augustine the lead went from 10 to 15 to 20 to 30; it kept building. Today, it got to 20 and we cut it back down. That shows me that we’re growing and we’re getting better.
“I’m not happy with the loss, but I’m proud of the effort.”
The roadmap for this one is pretty easy to follow. The Red Devils started fast. They scored the first 10 points of the game and for a brief moment gave rise to the idea they might be able to pull off the upset.
But the Vikings finally got on the board a little more than halfway through the first quarter and the fortunes of both teams quickly turned. The Vikings went on a 16-2 run that carried into the second quarter to take control and after Nasir Benjamin turned into a one-man wrecking crew at the end of the quarter they had a 13-point halftime lead. That’s a 23-point swing over the last 13 minutes of the half.
“One of the keys to the game with this team was they’re a Group 4 squad and they’re very, very solid, so we knew we had to execute on offense,” Ware said. “That’s exactly what we did to start the game: We executed. We ran a couple sets, we got the open shot and we knocked the shots down.
“Later in the first quarter they went to a little 2-2-1 press and we started going too fast. We started pressing a little bit. Instead of staying calm and making the right play we started to try to put our head down and just drive through guys that are 6-5. Not gonna happen when we’re 6-foot.”
Brandin Robbins and Roman Gipson played big roles in the Red Devils’ fast start. They opened the game with 3-pointers and then each had a layup. Robbins’ layup was a scoop in traffic that looked more like a softball pitch at the basket, but it went in as one of those circus shots teams need to hit that give rise to an upset.
Robbins cooled off, but Gipson stayed hot. He led the Red Devils with a career-high 21 points. Whenever it looked like the Vikings were about to pull away, Gipson or Antoine Robinson hit a bucket to keep it from getting too far out of reach. Robinson had 11 points
Gibson is averaging 12.5 points a game this season, but he’s had 40 points in his last two games.
“Gipson’s starting to play,” Ware said. “I’ve been trying to get him to play like this for two years now and now he’s finally starting to get downhill and he’s playing with supreme confidence.
“That;s the thing about Roman. When he plays with confidence and he plays strong, he’s tough to deal with because he has a lot of moves. And as the kids say, ‘he’s got a deep bag.’ He’s got a deep bag of tricks. If he uses them and learns how to implement them at the right time he’ll be very successful.”
Sean Karbach led Eastern with 15 points. Jake Tulman and Kaedon Harper had 10 points apiece. Chase Huggard had eight points seven rebounds, seven assists and six of the Vikings’ 15 steals. Connor Henry didn’t score, but he had nine rebounds.
EASTERN 56, PENNS GROVE 43
EASTERN (8-1) – R.J. Gadson 0 0-0 0, Nasir Benjamin 4 0-1 8, Devansh Shah 1 0-0 2, Jake Tulman 4 0-0 10, Logan Dawson 1 0-0 3, Nate Zanetich 0 0-0 0, Chase Huggard 3 2-2 8, Connor Henry 0 0-0 0, Colin Virastek 0 0-0 0, Sean Karbach 7 1-1 15, Kaedon Harper 5 0-0 10, Ashton Fedore 0 0-0 0. Totals 25 3-4 56.
PENNS GROVE (2-4) – Karon Ceaser 2 0-0 4, Brandin Robbins 2 0-0 5, Jameel Horace 0 1-2 1, Luis Colon 0 1-2 1, Roman Gipson 8 3-4 21, Antoine Robinson 5 0-0 11, Caleb Foster 0 0-2 0, Haneef Frisbee 0 0-0 0. Totals 17 5-8 43.
| Eastern | 16 | 20 | 10 | 11- | 56 |
| Penns Grove | 14 | 8 | 9 | 12- | 43 |
CUMBERLAND 70, PENNSVILLE 49: The Colts used a big second half to pull away from a tight game and hand the Eagles their third straight loss.
The Eagles led 28-27 at halftime, but it was all Cumberland in the second half. Kaleb Green scored 14 of his 24 points and Pat Crawford 11 of his 19 after halftime. And Kevin Fiorani scored seven of his nine second-half points in the third quarter.
“We just ran out of gas,” Pennsville coach Joe Mecholsky said.
Mason O’Brien did all he could to keep Pennsville in it. He had all 16 of the Eagles’ points in the first quarter and finished with a career-high 28 points and is now averaging 16.2 ppg through the team’s first six games.
The Eagles made a couple shots in the first half that left the impression that this was going to be their day.
O’Brien hit a 3-pointer from the right corner that gave Pennsville its first lead, then hit an off-balanced one right before the buzzer to tie the game at 16. The second 3 touched off a 13-point run that gave the Eagles a 10-point lead with 4:20 left in the first half. Their first basket of the second quarter was C.J. McDevitt’s equally acrobatic throw that made it through the hoop.
Perry Meranti’s bucket off an inbounds pass put Pennsville up 26-16. At that point the Colts went to a zone and it changed the game. Cumberland used it to spark an 11-0 run to retake the lead. Jovanni Rios stopped the run and gave the Eagles a 28-27 halftime lead, but it didn’t stop the Colts’ momentum. They outscored Pennsville 43-21 in the second half.
“We just couldn’t penetrate the zone, couldn’t outshoot the zone, couldn’t do the things we needed to do to beat the zone, so the zone took them home,” Mecholsky said. “(His team) showed a lot of heart after getting beat by 50 the night before coming back to the gym the next day ready to work and were doing the things we wanted to do, we just weren’t able to continue that for four quarters.”
CUMBERLAND (2-6) – Kaleb Green 8 7-7 24, Jay Davis 3 0-0 6, Kameron Fiorani 0 2-2 2, Pat Crawford 8 3-5 19, Major Martin-Dunn 1 0-0 2, Troy Collins 2 0-0 4, Khalif Dawkins 1 0-0 2, Kevin Fiorani 4 1-1 9, Sincere Sadler 1 0-0 2. Totals 28 13-15 70.
PENNSVILLE (1-5) – Mason O’Brien 9-23 6-8 28, Jovanni Rios 5-6 1-4 11, Cole Johnston 2-4 0-0 5, Shiloh Jefferson 0-1 0-0 0, C.J. McDevitt 1-2 1-2 3, Perry Meranti 1-1 0-0 2, Daniel Knight 0-2 0-0 0, Jacob Miller 0-0 0-0 0, Logan Hitt 0-1 0-0 0, Noah Owen 0 0 0, Griffin Hern 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 18-40 8-14 49.
| Cumberland | 16 | 11 | 19 | 24- | 70 |
| Pennsville | 16 | 12 | 10 | 11- | 49 |
Girls game
PENNSVILLE 61, CUMBERLAND 25: The Eagles jumped out to a big lead and placed four scorers in double figures for the first time this season while winning its third game in a row.
The Eagles got their expected scoring from their Big Three – Marley Wood (17), Nora Ausland (14) and Taylor Bass (12) – but this time added fourth to the mix. Freshman Addie Johnston, a 5-foot-7 freshman, scored a career-high 12 points.
The last time they had four scorers in double figures in a game was a Feb. 9, 2024 win over Millville – Wood (12), Ausland (11), Bass (10) and Bella Farina (13).
Johnston scored only 20 points in her previous five games, but had 16 in her last two. Four times Saturday she ran the floor leading the transition and finished with the layup. Interestingly, all four games in which she has scored this season, the Eagles (4-2) have won.
“She’s really coming into her own,” Pennsville coach Steve Merritt said. “She is not playing as a typical freshman. Not free of freshman mistakes, but clearly playing at a higher level than most her age. I foresee an exceptional future/career.”
PENNSVILLE (4-2) – Taylor Bass 5 0-0 12, Marley Wood 8 0-0 17, Nora Ausland 5 1-2 14, Jaida Burns 1 0-0 2, Addison Johnston 5 0-0 12, Izzy Saulin 0 0-2 0, Sofia Belitsas 0 0-0 0, Ashlyn Fredo 1 0-0 2, Kylie Harris 1 0-0 2. Totals 26 1-4 61.
CUMBERLAND (3-6) – Isabella Albert 0 0-0 0, Elizabeth Pflieger 1 0-0 2, Addison Weist 4 0-0 9, Ellie Bodine 1 1-2 4, DeMyra Spence 1 0-2 2, Gabby Albert 2 0-0 4, DaNya Gould 0 0-0 0, Aleena Fennal 0 0-0 0, Kamila Ramos 1 0-0 2, Mikaylah Piccioni 1 0-0 2, JaLynn Brown 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 1-4 25.
| Pennsville | 22 | 14 | 17 | 8- | 61 |
| Cumberland | 4 | 6 | 6 | 9- | 25 |
Active scorers watch
| SALEM COUNTY SCORING LIST | POINTS |
| Talia Battavio, Woodstown | 1332 |
| Megan Donelson, Woodstown | 1295 |
| 1000-POINT WATCH | |
| Nora Ausland, Pennsville (Salem 462/Pennsville 427) | 889 |
| Marley Wood, Pennsville | 799 |
| x-RaNiyah Wilson, Penns Grove (Kingsway 251/Penns Grove 492) | 743 |
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